Clean
by Lucifer no Miko
Summary: For "A Turntable Girl." Is she really as terrible as we think? *Another* angsty songfic to "Blood Roses" by Tori Amos.


~Ahaha... Ahaha...~  
  
Aleya Jacobs carefully pulled her black hair back from her face, watching the way her visage rippled and changed in the water. She carefully listened to the sounds of her husband fucking the cook, waiting for the sign that the younger man had left and she could go back in and massage her husband's aching muscles. He wasn't a smart man, Nathaniel, but he would take care of her. And he'd take care of Kenneth.  
  
A sudden chill went up her spine. Kenneth. That didn't sound much like a man's voice.. too raw, too young- Oh, god. Kenneth.  
  
~Blood roses, blood roses, back on the street now.  
Blood roses, blood roses back on the street now.  
Can't forget the things you never said.~  
  
She walked from the garden, gray saw Kenneth. Bruised. Bloody. The little Black boy didn't say anything; he was stumbling, he was crying, he was bleeding red blood against that charcoal brown skin of his.. Why? Why not her? Why didn't he love her, even if it was violently, why didn't he want her.. Why was it always in his guilt, his shame for.. She wanted to cry out. She didn't. She bit her tongue, stared at him, and walked into the room. Why couldn't she have children? But that wouldn't have helped. No, that wouldn't have helped.. Nothing could be done.  
  
~An on days like these starts me thinking.  
When chickens get a taste of your meat girl.  
When chickens get a taste of your meat, yes. ~  
  
And walked into the pit of a demon.. She felt her stomach crawling up to her throat like an invisible cockroach, the delicious dinner turned to a diseased black bug inside her. She smiled, let her healing fingers touch every sore muscle of his, let his probing fingers touch every white-sunshine beaten inch of her. Loving became a silent hating, his wordless apology for the monster he was. The monster she'd made him. She kissed him with all the passion of the girl she never was, but the passion came from her rage. He was limp above her, he was never wanting it. She spoke names of boys, spoke names of girls, spoke names of the stars he loved so much as a child.  
  
~Ahaha..  
You gave him your blood and your warm little diamond.  
He likes killing you after you're dead.~  
  
The rise and fall of his perfectly muscled back appealed to her. He slept on his stomach. She slept on her back. He slept on her stomach. She slept on his back.  
  
It didn't much matter any more, did it? The fold of his smooth hair, the edges to his eyes as he became older, older, and she became younger, younger, a child in his shadow again, but angry, full of vengeance..  
  
She didn't remember what she was angry for anymore. Too much acid, the drug form and the metaphysical form, sinking inside her pretty little mind and poisoning her thoughts of him. But she'd had the impression it was bad, yes, very bad..  
  
~You think I'm a queer, I think you're a queer.  
Said I think you're a queer, I think you're a queer.~  
  
She felt the long silken raise of her hair -- her glorious hair, all inky blackness of it that sent admiration through every man who saw her, even though she was married, even though her husband was a drunken child-injur -- NO, Aleya, not today. She looked at him, laughing and swallowing shots of vodka.. she counted one, two, three, four.. It'd be so easy, slip a pill, rat poison, right into his drink.. The smile she didn't feel, didn't see, spread across her features. She looked into the mirror and stared at herself. Hello, Mrs. Jacobs, how are you today? Yes, yes, we're fine, we're fine, goodbye.. Always goodbye.. it seemed like everything anybody ever said to her today. How ever did Nathaniel stand that strange wife of his, his wife wondered.   
  
~I shaved every place where you been boy.  
I said, I shaved every place where you been, yes.~  
  
The raw heat, the raw power of the showerhead beat into her. Nathaniel would yell at her for turning the shower on so hard, but she loved it.. it cleansed her of today, of the unforgivable yesterday. Aleya wanted to clean it all white, she wanted to scrape her skin away, the skin Nathanial had forced into the sunlight.. she remembered its paleness prior to their wedding. Oh, yes. She remembered that.   
  
Was that it? She hated him because he'd made her get a suntan? Or was this accumulated, was this all a daily sort of build-up of all her lonely sight-proof tears?  
  
~Ahaha..  
God knows I know I've thrown away those graces..  
God knows I know I've thrown away those graces..  
God knows I know I've thrown away those graces..~  
  
She watched the young women dancing, twisting their lithe nubile bodies -- she wasn't two years older than them and already she felt like an old lady. She felt like she was eaten alive and they were still whole, but preparing for the feast.. She wanted to cry out to them not to do it, stay children. Men are evil, men are bad..  
  
~The Belle of New Orleans tried to show me once how to Tango.  
Wrapped around your feet, wrapped around like good little roses.  
Ahaha..~  
  
Every day Serena came over, and hugged her and kissed her forehead and cried about how bad she must be feeling, how much it must hurt. She wanted to scream. Serena, you're a housewife, Serena, you've got 2.5 kids and the perfect husband that was supposed to be mine, Serena, you've got everything, don't tell me you understand. Don't you fucking tell me you understand.  
  
Don't tell me anything.  
  
~Blood roses, blood roses, back on the street now.  
Blood roses, blood roses, back on the street now...   
Now... now... now...~  
  
She felt the sunshine, felt the thing that proved her mortality. She was human. She smiled at Nathaniel and took the shopping bags and swung them like a little girl until he scolded her and her arms fell loose, like two limp rag dolls at her side, fists clutching the bags until her knuckles turned white. She watched this in fascination as she walked until she knocked into him slightly and he scolded her again, like a child. She bit her lip and   
  
~You've cut out the flute from throat of the loon.  
And at last when you cry now, he can't even hear you.~  
  
What's tomorrow, anyway? She stared at the pretty pill in front of her, with the peace sign on it. What's yesterday when you're happy? She downed it and felt the rush that wasn't even there yet. She'd come to precipitate it. Nathaniel was having fun with his drinking buddies.. she would have fun, too..   
  
~When chickens get a taste of your meat girl,  
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon,  
Oh, when he sucks you deep, yes,   
Sometimes you're nothing but meat...~  
  
"God, Aleya, are you high again?"  
"Missus Aleya? Missus Aleya, are you all right?"  
"Mrs. Jacobs, where are you going?"  
  
Maybe she'd taken too many hits, because it was white.. so white.. all so white.. clean me, she cried inside her, clean me white as can be..  
  
Color me white..  
  
~Sometimes you're nothing but meat..~ 


End file.
